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About this quote

What does it mean?
Freedom comes when we stop demanding that life provide personal goods that are subject to change.
In plain terms
Freedom arises when we stop expecting life to give us mutable personal goods.
What can you take from it?
Release expectations of stable personal rewards to feel freer.

Where it applies

  • career planning
  • relationship expectations

Putting it to work

  • embrace impermanence
  • focus on internal values

Questions to consider

  • What balance between desire and detachment yields true freedom?
  • Can we still pursue goals without expectation?

Another view

Complete detachment may lead to apathy.

More from Bertrand Russell

  1. Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires.

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  2. The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things …

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  3. The life of man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and…

    Permalink to quote #72

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